Bristol Evening Post ** Tuesday April 10th 1973

Day trip ends in snow plunge-‘some injured’ 

A Vanguard charter plane from Bristol, with 139 passengers on board, crashed in severe snowstorm near Base airport in Switzerland this afternoon. 

First provisional official reports were there was an unspecified number of survivors. 

NEWS FLASH Swiss news agency ATS reported this after- noon that according to reports there were no casualties. But the Fedcral Office for Air Accident Investigations could give no information on casualties. 

Later a report reaching a Bristol travel agency said some passengers had been injured, but none killed. The charter plane, from Invicta Airways, was on a one-day charter trip to Switzerland/ organised by Unicorn Travel. 

First reports said the trip had been organised by local publicans, and businessmen to visit a trade fair The plane, which left Bristol with a full load, included among its passengers 20 members of Bristol Airport staff. The four-engined turbo- prop airliner overshot the airport at Basle while attempting a landing It crashed, near Hochwald south of Basle.

The plane was carrying a crew of seven. According to one report by the official Swiss News Agency, there were many injured.  But no deaths had been reported yet. Contact between the plane and the Swiss airport at Valse-Mulhouse, Basle, was lost during the flight. 

The crash was near the tiny village of Hochwald, on the slopes of the Jura mountain range which rises in places to 4,000ft. Weather conditions all over Switzerland today were very bad, with snow and sleet reducing visibility at times down to a few feet.